A perfectly reasonable and peer-reviewed paper by four Italian scientists is now being retracted by the European Physical Journal Plus, which is owned by scientific media company Springer. What, exactly, was wrong with the paper? It came to the unthinkable conclusion that, despite breathless media reports, it’s simply far too early to declare that we are currently in the midst of a climate crisis.
The New American covered the paper’s release last September. Among its conclusions was that it is irresponsible to hyperventilate about climate emergencies when there is no clear evidence that we’re experiencing such a thing yet.
“Leaving the baton to our children without burdening them with the anxiety of being in a climate emergency would allow them to face the various problems in place (energy, agricultural-food, health, etc.) with a more objective and constructive spirit, with the goal of arriving at a weighted assessment of the actions to be taken without wasting the limited resources at our disposal in costly and ineffective solutions,” the authors stated.
Unfortunately, such a conclusion was far too reasonable for the climate cult, which is deeply invested in the narrative that a climate crisis is happening right now and that, unless we panic and do away with everything that makes human thriving possible immediately — namely fossil fuels — we are dooming future generations to a planet destroyed by our own shortsightedness.
The study was widely read, and was intended to be read and understood by laymen as well as scientists. And such a thing is not allowed by the cultish gatekeepers of climate change dogma. All narrative points must be disseminated (or at least approved) by them. So, of course, they went into full attack mode.
The left-wing British newspaper The Guardian claimed that the study wasn’t a study at all and that the researchers — physicist Gianluca Alimonti, professor of agrometeorology Luigi Mariani, atmospheric physicist Franco Prodi, and physicist Renato Angelo Ricci — were simply writing climate denial propaganda.
“The climate science denial echo-chamber has been loud and proud this week with claims a new ‘international study’ has found no evidence of a climate emergency in records of extreme weather,” wrote Graham Readfearn.
“The authors … did little original work, but instead reviewed selected papers from other scientists. This was an article, not a study,” Readfearn concluded.
Other climate cult-friendly media piled on, alleging that the authors “cherry picked” data and even misquoted others in gathering their information.
The media outbursts caused the publisher, Springer, to investigate the peer-reviewed paper, possibly looking to force an erratum — a formal admission of error — to be published.
Scientists from the Climate Mafia joined the fray. Michael Mann, who created the widely discredited “hockey stick graph” featured in Al Gore’s climate propaganda film An Inconvenient Truth, claimed that the study was “another example of scientists from totally unrelated fields coming in and naively applying inappropriate methods to data they don’t understand. Either the consensus of the world’s climate experts that climate change is causing a very clear increase in many types of weather extremes is wrong, or a couple of nuclear physics dudes in Italy are wrong.”
Mann, of course, was also infamous for his inclusion in the Climategate email scandal, which showed that he and other “scientists” had worked to “hide the decline” of temperature data that damaged the climate change narrative.
Yet even Mann was apparently listened to, as on August 23 European Physical Journal Plus decided to retract the paper.
Fortunately, after some updates, the four scientists have found another journal in which to publish their paper.
A whistleblower has leaked certain emails between the editors of the journal and the publishing scientists showing the timeline leading to the retraction.
Asked about “some issues” with paper, one of the editors responsible for the study’s publication, Jozef Ongena, responded.
“The article has undergone the usual peer review. There should be no blame and shame… Peer reviewing is the common practice. That there is a discussion seems not abnormal and seems a very healthy thing…. I would invite the colleagues that have objections to send in their objections and to pass them on to the authors,” Ongena said. “We should as a journal not refrain or be afraid from a scientific discussion, but it should be in a correct way.”
But that was science done the old way. In today’s world of climate science, the approved narrative must be adhered to without question. Failing that, reputations and careers must be destroyed. No further discussion is needed.
